


Alight

by RisuAlto



Series: Tumblr Ask Prompt Fills [20]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Hugs, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), but no actual sex, fwb to lovers, this was a prompt but also, very self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 17:24:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuAlto
Summary: He and Felix had been friends for so long, and they were both so stressed, alone, even among their old classmates, that the first time they’d fallen into each other’s bedrolls to relieve the tension of it, it was nothing short of simple.  Obvious. Necessary, even.Comforting, warm, right, hissed a treacherous part of Sylvain’s brain.  But he’d been ignoring that voice for almost three months, now, reminding himself that nothing had changed; they were just friends, and this was just business.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: Tumblr Ask Prompt Fills [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547980
Comments: 4
Kudos: 119





	Alight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinyivyleaves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyivyleaves/gifts).

> This prompt was, "Hiding-your-face hug."

This whole arrangement had to end. Sylvain should have known from the fucking start that it was a terrible idea, but at the time? He hadn’t been thinking straight—in more ways than one.

He and Felix had been friends for so long, and they were both so stressed, alone, even among their old classmates, that the first time they’d fallen into each other’s bedrolls to relieve the tension of it, it was nothing short of simple. Obvious. Necessary, even.

_Comforting, warm, right_, hissed a treacherous part of Sylvain’s brain. But he’d been ignoring that voice for almost three months, now, reminding himself that nothing had changed; they were just friends, and this was just business.

Except it wasn’t. Not to Sylvain, not anymore. That whisper in his head had grown too loud, resonating in every cavity of his body including, unfortunately, his heart. And it ached, just like any muscle he could have overworked.

The ache flared as he felt Felix sigh in his arms, disappointed as usual, and start to slip out of Sylvain’s bed. His movements were cautious so as not to wake Sylvain (if he’d been asleep), but it was undeniable that Felix was moving quickly, rushing to get back to his own room. It felt like being punched in the collarbone.

He’d asked Felix to stay, this time, just to see if he would, and when Felix had let Sylvain tug him into the bed at his side, wrapped up in each other, he’d thought— For a second, he’d _thought_—

Well, he supposed, he’d thought wrong. Which meant there was really no way for this to go on. Not when Sylvain had fallen so completely, _stupidly_ in love with his oldest friend who couldn’t care less.

He let one more cycle of breath pass through his lungs, like he could inhale the courage to end this, or maybe make a cushion in his chest for the last pieces of his heart. Then, he reached out, catching Felix by the waist as he stood.

“Felix,” Sylvain breathed. He cursed himself for not keeping his voice steady, instead burying his face into the back of Felix’s shirt, like somehow hiding his face would make it less likely that Felix would see right through him.

He did feel Felix’s breath catch before he whispered, harshly, “Syl_vain_!” Felix tried to turn in his grip, but for all his normal grace, Sylvain was too desperate to give him any quarter. Eventually, Felix stilled, hands hovering over Sylvain’s arm. Never touching. “What are you—go back to sleep.”

“This has to stop,” Sylvain said. It burst from his lips in a single rush. Though he couldn’t see anything beyond the vague shapes of fabric on Felix’s back, he squeezed his eyes shut like it could distract from the feeling of his chest being wrung out.

“Is this another one of your dumbass lines, Sylvain?” Felix asked, crossing his arms. “’Cause if so, don’t bother finishing it.”

Sylvain barely suppressed a wet chuckle. It sounded more like a heave of breath, which… could have been worse. “No, it’s…I can’t do this anymore. This, it just—it has to stop. I’m sorry.”

The body in his arms became totally still. “Right,” said Felix. “Fine.” He tried to take a step away, but Sylvain, without thinking, held tighter. Felix growled, looking over his shoulder as he snapped, “I get it; you’re bored, and you want to go back to fucking every girl in the monastery, so _let go_—”

Something like a gasp clawed its way out of Sylvain’s throat at Felix’s words, and he only realized too late that keeping his face pressed against Felix’s back meant that Felix would have felt it.

“No, I’m not—” _I’m not bored. I don’t want anyone else. I want you, but not the way you want me_, Sylvain didn’t say. _I don’t want to let go._

“Yeah, I _get_ it,” Felix snapped. Sylvain could see his hands curling into fists at his sides, vibrating with anger, ready to strike. “You want to keep wasting your time with women instead of everything else we’re doing in this war. I was a fool to think otherwise.”

“I want _you_, Felix! I don’t want some random woman to be the one I kiss when we’re celebrating, or hold me when we’re struggling, or—or wake up next to when this is all over. I didn’t promise someone like that to stay with them until we die. I didn’t ask them to _stay_, Felix, just—”

Sylvain couldn’t have moved if Sothis herself appeared and commanded it. His cheek ached from being pressed so tightly against Felix, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up and watch another person (_no, the person who mattered most_) leave, empty and disappointed. 

“You were serious,” Felix said, but Sylvain could barely hear it beyond the slight rumble he felt against his face, “when you said stay.” It sounded like the thought had only _just_ occurred to Felix in that moment, and…

Felix hadn’t even considered that Sylvain might mean it. Of course. At least, later, Sylvain would be able to tell himself Felix had been so cold out of ignorance rather than spite. “Yes,” he said anyway, and started to release his arms from Felix’s waist.

They didn’t fall, and Felix didn’t leave. Instead, Sylvain found his arms being pinned in place by rough, _warm_ hands and his face being tucked into a chest that was slowly relaxing. Felix had dropped to his knees by the bed and was reaching to hold him back. “Idiot,” he whispered into Sylvain’s hair. The word had never before sounded so kind, but Sylvain would swear in the moment that Felix could have cast white magic for how gentle it was.

His head was heavy, exhaustion tugging him insistently back into the bed. Sylvain held firm, twisting his fingers again into Felix’s shirt as though mooring himself to reality. “Stay,” he said into Felix’s chest. “Please, Felix.”

“Whatever,” Felix said, but he sounded strangely winded, even _before_ he lifted Sylvain with one arm and pushed himself back into bed with the other.

“_’Whatever?’_” Sylvain echoed, pulling back to look at Felix, faux shock gilding his face. “Come on, you can at least agree properly.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Felix asked. In any other situation, Sylvain thought Felix would have looked away at this, but he didn’t. He stared into Sylvain’s face like there was no other way to explain everything they meant when he said, “Until we die together.”

There really wasn’t, Sylvain guessed. But “coming home” felt pretty close.


End file.
